Administered by the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI), the center will increase the System's ability to meet existing and emerging statewide needs in water conservation and technology, according to Dr. Neal Wilkins, TWRI director.

"The center will accelerate the development and adoption of new and innovative technologies to solve emerging water problems and meet future water supply needs," Wilkins said.

The state should not waste the attention the 2011 drought has brought upon water security, said experts at a recent water conference in Austin. The need to move forward in research, planning and policy and to diversify Texas' water supplies were the common threads voiced.

Dr. Ron Kaiser, a Texas A&M University professor, said the state should not waste a bad drought, but use this opportunity to make substantial changes to water policy. He cited major changes made to water planning regulations after previous droughts, including changes in integrating different water laws into a prior appropriations system after the 1950s drought, known as the drought of record, and Senate Bill 1 in the 1990s, which instituted the current state water planning process.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced on May 8 the launch of a new Water Quality Initiative dedicated to improving impaired waterways in Texas. NRCS will manage the initiative by making $2 million in financial assistance available to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners in the Chambers Creek watershed. This stream is a Trinity River tributary, flowing into Richland-Chambers Reservoir, a water source for roughly 1.6 million people in Fort Worth and surrounding communities through the Tarrant Regional Water District.

Through this initiative, eligible producers in the Chambers Creek watershed in Ellis and Navarro counties will implement voluntary conservation practices to help provide cleaner water for their neighbors and communities.

The Bush Excellence Award for faculty in International Research was presented to Dr. Vijay P. Singh, professor and Caroline and William N. Lehrer Distinguished Chair in Water Engineering in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University. Organizers say for more than 30 years, Singh has dedicated his scientific and intellectual efforts for the betterment of humanity through national and international contributions to water resources engineering.

The research he pioneered in entropy theory in hydrology now has its roots in collaboration with distinguished scientists and engineers from 15 countries, representing every continent of the world.

According to EPA, student teams, working with a faculty advisor, will submit design plans for a proposed green infrastructure project for their campus. Challenge registration opens Sept. 4, and entries must be submitted by Dec. 14 for consideration. Winning entries will be selected by EPA and announced in April 2013. Winning teams will earn a cash prize of $1,500–$2,500, as well as $8,000–$11,000 in funds for their faculty advisor to conduct research on green infrastructure.

The transformation of a clear-cut, overgrazed working ranch into Cook's Branch Conservancy has earned a Texas family the 2012 Leopold Conservation Award, the state's highest honor recognizing habitat management and wildlife conservation on private land.

Operated as a program of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, Cook's Branch Conservancy is located on 5,650 acres in Montgomery County north of Houston. The property offers a rare glimpse into what a century of regeneration looks like in the Pineywoods region of East Texas.

The Leopold award is conferred each year by Sand County Foundation, an international nonprofit organization devoted to private land conservation, in partnership with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), as part of its Lone Star Land Steward Awards program. In Texas, the Leopold award is sponsored by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Silver Eagle Distributors and the Lee and Ramona Bass Foundation.

Loss of production may be one concern cotton producers have on the Rolling Plains when considering switching to reduced- or no-tillage systems, said Dr. Paul DeLaune, Texas AgriLife Research environmental soil scientist in Vernon.

However, not only will cotton growers not lose production with subsurface drip irrigation, but their economics will also improve, according to DeLaune's latest research article that will appear in the July-August issue of Agronomy Journal.

"We found that tillage has no impact on yields, the net returns are greater and, because we can deficit irrigate, we can save energy and water," he said.

Dr. Francisco Mojarro, research fellow professor at the Autonomous University of Zacateca, will present a seminartitled "A Decision Support System for the Sustainability of the Calera Aquifer in Zacatecas, Mexico" June 22 on the Texas A&M University campus. The seminar will begin at 3 p.m., in Room 305 of Scoates Hall.

Mojarro will be discussing a recent study that applied models to the Calera Aquifer to make several simulations quantifying the effects of five hypothetical scenarios over a 20-year period. In Zacatecas, during the period of 1965 to 1980, the attention of government and farmers was turned to the exploitation and use of Calera groundwater, according to Mojarro. Due to the lack of a plan for long-term aquifer sustainability, said Mojarro, severe problems in groundwater availability, soil, natural vegetation, and water degradation became a concern of state and federal governments. The Texas Water Resources Institute and the Texas A&M Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering are jointly hosting the seminar.

The Invaders of Texas program is conducting an invasive plant and pest workshop in the Texas Hill Country to train citizen scientists to identify and report invasive pests of regulatory concern, such as the cactus moth and onionweed. Free and open to the public, the workshop is scheduled for June 9, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Texas Tech University Llano River Field Station (TTU-LRFS) in Junction.

According to organizers, this workshop supplements the Invaders of Texas program by training participants to identify and report invasive pests while looking for invasive plants. The workshop includes a half-day refresher course of the Invaders of Texas program, with sessions on identification of regional invasive plants, website navigation, and data reporting. Participants are asked to provide their own transportation and bring a camera and GPS (if available).

Texas AgriLife Research scientists are on a quest to find where different wheat varieties popular in the High Plains get their drought tolerance.

Dr. Shuyu Liu, AgriLife Research small grains geneticist in Amarillo, is working with a group of scientists on an Ogallala Aquifer Program-funded project to identify key genetic regulators of drought tolerance.

"We are trying to understand the drought-tolerant mechanisms in wheat varieties," Liu said. "In this study, we are looking at three widely planted varieties in the High Plains, TAM 111, TAM 112 and TAM 304.

TWRI and the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute are working together to foster and communicate research and educational outreach programs focused on water and natural resources science and management issues in Texas and beyond.